Nikola Vukovic
Nippon Dragon Resources
Nick Vukovich is Director of Nippon Dragon Resources; junior mining company with mine in Quebec and ground breaking thermal fragmentation technology for non-destructive hard rock mining. Prior positions held include operational, technical, senior and executive management positions with mining and consulting companies, most notably Total, BHP Billiton, Freeport McMoRan and Hatch. He received a BEng degree in geological and geotechnical science from the University of Tuzla and the MEng degree in mining and rock mechanics science from the University of McGill. He has been active in the area of mining resource management, construction and operation for three decades and authored ten mining publications on process improvement and technology innovations. His international experience includes engineering, project management, continues improvement, business development and consultancies in Canada, USA, Russia, Australia and Europe.
Hard Rock Revolution Has Arrived
The mining industry needs the technology to provide a viable alternative to drill and blast and no mining restrictions to rock hardness. The industry requires a smaller, simple, compact and flexible lower-mass, lower cost mining machine that will be more effective in mining of accessible and leftover mine reserves.
Ten years ago, Nippon Dragon Resources commercially launched the hybrid mining and thermal fragmentation technology for a safer and more efficient way of continues hard rock mining and selective recovery of narrow vein orebodies. The new technology involves directional drilling of 10cm to 15cm diameter pilot holes up to 30m deep following the mineralized zone, spalling thermal reaction initiated by burner powered by diesel fuel and compressed air for expanding of pilot holes up to 120cm diameter, collecting and transferring fragmented material with average size of 0-1.2mm in an enclosed system for further processing and backfilling the cavities with processed material.